Vietnam to restore mangroves

Coastal nations vulnerable to climate change, says UN
Vietnam News 12 Nov 08;

HCM CITY — Viet Nam and Bangladesh are among the countries worst affected by climate change because of rising sea levels near their coastlines, according to the UN’s inter-governmental committee on climate change.

Nguyen Hoang Nghia, director of Viet Nam’s Institute of Forestry Science, said the mangrove ecosystem in the country was undergoing severe damage.

In the last 50 years, the mangrove forests in Viet Nam have almost halved in size, shrinking to 209,740ha from 408,500ha in 1943, according to the institute.

Nghia spoke at a seminar that discussed the regeneration and development of the country’s mangrove ecosystem, held in HCM City last week.

Although the value of salt marsh forests is widely recognised, little is known about its role as a wall against devastating sea-generated weather phenomena such as typhoons, tsunamis and coastal erosion, according to experts.

Hurricane records in the past three years have proven that mangroves protect inhabited areas.

Solid concrete embankments were smashed in the absence of robust mangrove forests, leaving interior villages ravaged.

The forest acts as a shield which consumes much of the hurricanes’ energy, thus weakening them when they reach land.

In case of erosion, the plants’ interlocking roots stop riverborne sediment from drifting out to sea, and their trunks and branches can diminish the erosive power of waves.

In recent years, vast valuable tracts of mangroves, especially along the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta, have rapidly vanished.

The surviving groves have been severely degraded in almost all areas where they are found, resulting in poor economic and protective value, experts said.

Many local shrimp farmers have eyed the remaining mangrove marshes, whose vast stretches has been cleared to set up shrimp farms, without sufficient knowledge of why the forests should be saved, according to experts.

To counter the situation, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has set up a project to regenerate coastal mangrove forests until 2015.

The objective is to recover the lost protection belt, expand it by 2010, and increase the budget for the project to VND2.490 trillion (US$148,214,000).

It is estimated that 10.8 per cent of Viet Nam’s population is vulnerable to rising sea levels, with most of them living in vulnerable areas – Mekong Delta, the Hong (Red) River Delta or coastal areas. — VNS